(Philip Taylor) (PDF 3.1MB) - ANU

INDIGENIZING COLONIAL MODERNITY IN NAM EO
123
(bOa nh[}p) to the rhythm of the age (nhfp s6ng th Oi
d q i) I08 Figure 10
The era of globalization was evoked not as a threat
Southern Vietnamese cultural influences:
The Jade Emperor (NgQC Hoang) blesses a Minh Hai
to identity but on the contrary, to show history moving bookstore during Tel, and (opposite page) prize-winning
in a way that would allow the region's identity its full dancer HUrYng Giang in a rendition of "Siva "
realization. If the people of the Mekong delta were able
to fall easily into stride with contemporary global
developments, it was because their own local history was
of such a dynamic character.
Initially, the authors focused on the era of Vietnamese
settlement of the delta, agreeing with authors such as
Huynh NgQc Trang and Nguyen C6ng Blnh et al. that
here, cultural legacies from elsewhere had undergone
dynamic transformation:
Since long ago, the people coming to exploit this waste
region have brought with them cultural characteristics
from every region of the country. Through many generations,
the inhabitants of the Mekong delta have maintained
the national essence, simultaneously renewing
(dtJi mCti) and developing it to construct a separate,
original cultural history of their own. 1 07
Yet the authors found strongest proof of the region's
ability to adapt to a new "epoch" such as the present one,
by invoking an epochal, longue duree account of regional
history:
If we follow the course of history, we find this place has
seen three consecutive cultures: Dong Nai culture, 6c
Eo culture and Gia Dtnh culture. The transition of these
cultures proves that the inhabitants of the Mekong delta
by birth carry in their blood a sensitivity to the times and
they can always find the quickest way to adapt their
way of life to new situations. lOS
The sensitivity to the new or "exoticism," which Trang described as a
cultural constant of seventeenth- to twentieth-century Na m Br') culture, was
here given a millenial cast. Others cited the millenial succession of cultures
in the region as evidence of the region's uniquely dynamic history109 or ancient
vitality of culture.11o The present authors found in this same history the
relevance of distinctive biological factors. It is not quite clear whether the
authors saw such factors as determinant of the region's millennial history of
dynamism or a heredity legacy of it. If the latter meaning was intended, it
certainly does not exclude the former-according to which "birth" and
"blood" supposedly enabled the inhabitants of the Mekong delta "always to
find the quickest way to adapt their way of life to new situations."
107 Ibid., p.35.
108 Ibid.
109 Le Xuan Dim, "South Vietnam, a lively
cultural-historical region."
110 Nguyn C6ng Blnh, The culture and
population of the Mekong delta.